Comcast Has a New Roku App That Will Look Very Familiar to Xfinity X1 Users

Comcast began its first big move away from the set-top box that has been your living-room TV’s constant companion since the Reagan administration by launching the new Xfinity TV app for Roku smart TVs and streaming devices on Tuesday.

Decider’s demo of the app earlier today found it to be an able and almost fully functional replacement for the Xfinity X1 set-top box that is used by nearly half of Comcast cable subscribers, and the new app for Roku is consciously designed to mimic the X1’s user interface and features.

To use the Xfinity TV app, Comcast requires subscribers to have Xfinity internet service, Xfinity TV service and and at least one Comcast-provided set-top box. A Comcast spokesperson told Decider today that the last requirement — the set-top box — will fall away after the beta period ends and is there now as a safeguard to ensure that TV subscribers will have access while the company’s programmers continue working on the beta.

Photo: Comcast Xfinity

After downloading the Xfinity TV app to your Roku device, you connect it to your Comcast account with a short alphanumeric code as you do with other apps. The app opens to a welcome screen with options for live, on-demand and saved programming. During our demo, the live and on-demand programming worked flawlessly, and the saved programming tab began filling with the unfinished episodes of the shows we demo’d.

The Roku app has all but a handful of the X1’s major features. The app doesn’t DVR shows to the local device; Comcast says the beta will have cloud DVR recording, but that feature was not available yet on the unit we demo’d. For many shows you don’t need a cloud or device DVR because the most recent episodes or even the entire current season are available to stream on demand. The beta version of the app does not provide for renting or purchasing movies on-demand, but Comcast said that could come later.

For households with multiple cable-connected TVs, Comcast says, returning those extras set-top boxes and using the Roku app instead will save you $2.50 per TV per month from the current $10 per TV monthly charge. (You won’t have to pay wireline charges to use the app during the beta period.) Charging subscribers for each Roku connection would put Comcast at a competitive disadvantage to bundled TV services like Sling TV, Playstation Vue and DirecTV Now that offer similar channel packages for a flat monthly fee. Those charges may also rankle Comcast subscribers who see no practical reason to pay extra for programming on their Roku that doesn’t cost extra on the nearly identical Xfinity TV smartphone and tablet apps.

Comcast, which has 22.5 million U.S. bundled TV subscribers, announced in April 2016 that it was developing Xfinity TV apps for Roku, Samsung smart TVs and other hardware manufacturers through its Xfinity TV Partner Program. The Comcast spokesperson confirmed that that the Samsung app would begin rolling out as a beta sometime later this year and that the company is continuing to work with additional platforms. Comcast also has Xfinity TV mobile apps for watching TV shows and movies on iOS and Android devices.

Cable set-top boxes, connected-TV devices and smart TVs are increasingly jockeying to become viewers’ preferred platforms by adopting each other’s features. Set-top devices like the Xfinity X1 are adding third-party apps like Netflix and Sling TV, while connected-TV devices like Roku and smart TVs like Samsung are adding apps like DirecTV Now that offered bundled TV packages.

Scott Porch writes about the streaming-media industry for Decider and is also a contributing writer for Playboy. You can follow him on Twitter @ScottPorch.